"You get your heart broken often enough, you learn your lesson"

September 21, 2018 12:43 PM

Every Episode of Sports Night, Ranked
posted by still_wears_a_hat (54 comments total)

SHOE MONEY TONIGHT!
posted by octobersurprise at 12:47 PM on September 21, 2018 [14 favorites]

I forgot about this show and how much I loved it in cancelled-syndication back in the pre-internet day. I had never heard of the show, no one I knew had ever heard of it, and it felt like I had tripped on a lump of gold sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. I never really fell for later Sorkin stuff, and I'm a bit scared to watch it again now because I have probably changed so much that it won't be anything to it anymore.
posted by glonous keming at 12:57 PM on September 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

I would rather watch a random episode of this show than a random episode of West Wing any day. Flaws and all, of which I could provide an itemized list.

The idea of the Lion King musical vaguely appalls me, but that speech of Dana's after watching it will always stick with me. "I didn't know we could do that. Did you know we could do that?" The Sorkin aspirational stuff just seems less sanctimonious in this context.
posted by praemunire at 1:06 PM on September 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

(glonous, I've rewatched a few episodes in the past couple of years, and while the flaws become more apparent now that the weaknesses of that sort of white upper-middle-class self-satisfied liberalism have been more thoroughly exposed, nonetheless I enjoyed them.)
posted by praemunire at 1:07 PM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

So is this worth digging up for less than rabid fans?
posted by sammyo at 1:07 PM on September 21, 2018

> sammyo:
"So is this worth digging up for less than rabid fans?"

I'm way less than a rabid fan, and I think this is Sorkin's best work. All the fun and walk and talks of The West Wing without all the pomposity.

I'm guilty of calling a woman I was dating smoky, and we got into a huge argument about it. Apparently it doesn't work all that well in the real world.
posted by Sphinx at 1:11 PM on September 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

As a random person on the Internet and all the authority that brings, I suggest you watch the show.
I own the DVDs.
For point of reference, I never watched West Wing but did watch that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip show.
posted by BeReasonable at 1:17 PM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I loved "Sports Night." It had most of what you love about Aaron Sorkin, but before he became really full of himself.

As the article notes, a lot of the gender politics and treatment of women feel really dated now.* Beyond what was mentioned, there was Jeremy's response to Natalie being harassed by fans after she had the football player arrested: hack her email.

But many of the speeches and moments, many identified in the link, are great. "You're wearing my shirt" still gives me chills.

*Twenty years ago is just a bit less than my adulthood. It's easy to dismiss something from the fifties as "times were different then," not so much when you saw first run of the material in question. Either I'm older than I feel, or times have changed really fast. My hope is I'm learning and growing better than the Baby Boomers I know who feel they should be excused because "that's how we were raised."
posted by MrGuilt at 1:31 PM on September 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

"Make me cool again!"
"Well, first, I'd have to disabuse you of the notion that you were ever cool before..."

This was an A+++ show, would always recommend.
posted by invincible summer at 1:32 PM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

"You're wearing my shirt"

That was a really awesome moment, among many. That show had heart AND guts. I mean, it had its problems, but it didn't pull its punches. April is the Cruelest Month just gutted me.
posted by invincible summer at 1:35 PM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

The show concerns the behind-the-scenes workings of a SportsCenter-style nightly cable sports-news show, anchored by cocky buddies Casey McCall (Peter Krause) and Dan Rydell; produced by brilliant but flighty Dana Whitaker (Felicity Huffman) with the help of tough, bright Natalie Hurley (Sabrina Lloyd) and charismatically nerdy Jeremy Goodwin (Joshua Malina); all under the supervision of wise managing editor Isaac Jaffe (Robert Guillaume).

... is there some reason every actor gets named except Josh Charles?
posted by invincible summer at 1:38 PM on September 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

So is this worth digging up for less than rabid fans?

I think so. I’m not a sports guy, but loved the heck out of this show.
What might actually help one “get” the show would be to (somehow) dig up some episodes of ESPN’s SportsCenter from that same era. Especially the Olberman-Patrick shows.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:39 PM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Argh, it doesn't appear to be on streaming services.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:53 PM on September 21, 2018

I am watching Goodwife again, and I should go back to this, the collegiate boyishness of Charles might be better than I thot it was, because how it menaces in Goodwife is relevatory
posted by PinkMoose at 1:54 PM on September 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

invincible summer, that was the first thing I noticed, too. Josh Charles gets far too little credit.
posted by hanov3r at 2:01 PM on September 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Whatever did happen to Sabrina Lloyd, anyway? She was great on this and Sliders both.
posted by aihal at 2:01 PM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

In the US (at least), both seasons appear to available on Amazon streaming: Season 1, Season 2.
posted by hanov3r at 2:03 PM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

One thing I will forgive this show the vast majority of its flaws for is Dana and Natalie's relationship. It's the first time I remember seeing a workplace relationship on TV between two smart, ambitious women that wasn't about one or both of them undermining the other. And while there might be room to argue about whether it's a good workplace relationship, it's undeniably a caring and supportive one, on both sides.

I also really love Dana and Isaac's relationship. Robert Guillaume is so good. Even when his lines got clunky, which they did at times, he found a way to bring heart to them.
posted by EvaDestruction at 2:12 PM on September 21, 2018 [15 favorites]

Ugh. This listicle really needed a better editor.

26. “The Apology” (Season 2, Episode 2)

25. “Shane” (Season 2, Episode 6)

The “previously on Sports Night” opening calls back to “The Apology,” from a full season earlier, which gives you an idea of how deep this therapy arc is diving into Dan’s psychosis.

No, "The Apology" was Season one, episode two.
posted by hanov3r at 2:14 PM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

in which Casey is asked to apologize on-air for voicing his support of marijuana legalization

And it was Dan, not Casey who is asked to apologize. They even have a video embedded in there!
posted by haileris23 at 2:20 PM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Dan, who is referred to as "Dam" at least once in the listicle. [inchoate rage noises]
posted by hanov3r at 2:22 PM on September 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

RIP Robert Guillaume.

I haven't rewatched this series recently enough to know if it's still a good recommendation, but I definitely have fond memories of it. The listicle drops in a reference to M*A*S*H, and that actually clicked for me as a solid comparison. The gender politics are certainly better than M*A*S*H's, even if they aren't objectively great by modern standards, so if you can enjoy the one show you'll probably enjoy this one as well.

(Ugh, that fucking laugh track in the first season, though.)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:23 PM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh my LORD do I have opinions. Sports Night holds a very dear spot in my heart, partly because of the time frame (pre-9/11), and like some have said, it was Sorkin before he REALLY started getting up his own ass. See also: Buffy before we discovered just how problematic Joss Whedon is.

I didn't like much of season 2 - I like William H Macy but I didn't like Sam Donovan all that much (Cliff Gardner was probably the highlight for me). I hated hated HATED the Jenny arc, largely because I hated hated HATED the Jeremy/Natalie breakup.

I do recognize that season 1 had its problems (the laugh track chief among them), but I would still put episodes like The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee and Shoe Money Tonight higher.

See also the issues others have raised (the error of which season The Apology was and so forth).

All that said, it gets most of the top 10, and especially the top 5, pretty much right. Just like the writer, I vividly remember jumping up from where I was sitting and cussing a blue streak at the screen at "you're wearing my shirt", and the big pan around during the titular needle drop of Eli's Coming is some of the most perfectly haunting television I've ever seen.
posted by Tknophobia at 2:23 PM on September 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

"and guess what? Ntozake Nelson’s got something to say about a world record! Seeing is believing."

It's hard for me to fully wrap my head around how revolutionary this show was for 1998, the days of Friends and Fraiser. It was a workplace sitcom...with a laugh track. The expectations for drama were not high. And yet it could go off into a monologue about the brother-in-law of the inventor of television.

Also, "Someone holds the copyright to Happy Birthday? The representatives of Patty and Mildred Hill. Took two people to write that song?"
posted by zachlipton at 2:30 PM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

Yeah, there's something quite wrong with the gender politics of every single het couple (and there aren't any gay ones). I could go on. Jeremy is, alas, now probably a horrible Bernie middle-aged-bro and mansplainer. But those relationships usually also had some lovely aspects mixed in with the nonsense, a better ratio than most shows of that time and maybe even now.

(I always thought it was really funny that Jeremy's actor turned up as the university president in Big Bang Theory. When Jeremy is the socially competent one in the room--!)
posted by praemunire at 2:48 PM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

One thing I will forgive this show the vast majority of its flaws for is Dana and Natalie's relationship.

One of my favorite exchanges:

Dana: You have good ideas a lot. I find myself saying, "Natalie's got a good idea."
Natalie: But you also find yourself saying, "Natalie, if you screw that up again I'll set you on fire."

And Sabrina Lloyd should’ve been a breakout star of that show. Instead, she seems to have spent the last 20 years with minor roles in small movies and tv shows. She apparently spent a couple of years in Uganda. In retrospect, I hope she wasn’t forced out of the industry.
posted by octobersurprise at 3:02 PM on September 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

This says that establishing shots show this to be set in the WTC. The Onion made an article referencing this a few years back as well. But as someone who's seen this show roughly a hundred times, and lived a few blocks from the WTC while it was on the air: this is in Mid-town. THe establishing shot of the domed (I think) Eastern Orthodox Church tilting up the skyscraper? Midtown. The red numbers of 666 5th Avenue, as clearly seen through some window shots? Midtown. Tons of other surrounding buildings also being roughly this height?: Midtown. And I don't recall any WTC establishing shots at all. Am I crazy here?
posted by Navelgazer at 3:38 PM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

You might be right about where their office is, but there are lots of "This is New York City" shots that pan to lovingly center the WTC, usually during openings or transitions.
posted by brett at 4:12 PM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I remember thinking that this show is the exact opposite of Seinfeld, in that I don't feel the need to to punch ANY of the characters in the face
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 4:15 PM on September 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

I rewatched season one a couple of years ago, and loved it again.

It also reminded me that the nightly Olberman/Patrick SportsCenter shows they are paralleling/referencing were pretty darn good, too. (Or is that just nostalgia....?)
posted by wenestvedt at 4:18 PM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

As for my favorites:

3. Cliff Gardener
2. Dana Get Your Gun
1. April Is The Cruelest Month
posted by Navelgazer at 5:30 PM on September 21, 2018

This says that establishing shots show this to be set in the WTC. The Onion made an article referencing this a few years back as well. But as someone who's seen this show roughly a hundred times, and lived a few blocks from the WTC while it was on the air: this is in Mid-town.

We're supposed to believe they're in the WTC -- that's the main establishing shot. There's even an episode about a bomb threat to the building that, at the time, was a callback to the 1993 WTC bombing.
posted by tzikeh at 5:32 PM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I loved Sports Night. I also remember being furious when they broke up Natalie and Jeremy (I particularly identified/longed for that relationship since I was working sports adjacent at the time and boy am I a nerd like Jeremy - hopefully with more equanimity these days).

Actually now that I think about it in 20+ years as an engineer, I've somehow worked on a sports related project for like 15 of those. Huh.
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:14 PM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I would rather watch a random episode of this show than a random episode of West Wing

I was a huge fan of this show, although off the top of my head I don't recall many specifics about it. (It's been a long 20 years, people.) I only remember that it had several attractive actors (/shallow), the writing was clever, AND I resented TWW because I felt like Sports Night expired prematurely due to the former becoming Sorkin's favored baby.

I'm trying to decide if a temporary Hulu subscription is worth it to re-watch SN.

Dana and Natalie's relationship. It's the first time I remember seeing a workplace relationship on TV between two smart, ambitious women that wasn't about one or both of them undermining the other.

THAT - or just ANY good female friendship has been sooo missing from TV and movies. I've tried to create that dynamic in many of my (so-far) un-produced scripts.
posted by NorthernLite at 6:58 PM on September 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

Chuck 'The Cut Man' Kimmel: So strap yourselves in, folks. We're in for the night. 12 rounds from here at Bally's Park Place, just a stone's throw down the boardwalk from where a new Miss America was crowned just a few months ago. Miss Rochester, I believe it was.

Dan Rydell: Ok, well, Rochester's not a state, but we'll have somebody look that up.

Casey McCall: No, it's a city, Cut Man, in upstate New York. Contestants in the Miss America pageant have to come from one of the 50 states.

Chuck 'The Cut Man' Kimmel: Well, I hate to correct you on your own show, Casey, but there's 52 states with Alaska and Rhode Island.

Casey McCall: Okay.

Chuck 'The Cut Man' Kimmel: Though I'm no college professor, you see.

Dan Rydell: That's almost hard to believe, Cut Man.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:39 PM on September 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

It seems like a lot maybe most current tv is about horrible people being horrible. The characters on SN were decent people being good, bad and occasionally horrible, but even sort of horrible people were bearable. I love the rhythm and pace of Sorkin's writing, and that he writes as if the watcher may be intelligent. So now I want to re-watch it Nice post, thanks.
posted by theora55 at 7:54 PM on September 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

A 99pi episode from earlier this year talked about how Sports Night was revolutionary in eliminating the "Laff Track" from sitcoms:

... Some shows, like Sports Night, spanned a transitional period, starting out with a laugh track that grew softer and was eventually dropped entirely.

posted by ElGuapo at 8:32 PM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

It’s been years since I last rewatched it but I recall that Sorkin has always had a fascination with unusual names (cf. Pixley). Is there not some skeptical mention by maybe Dana of someone being named Elsie Sniffen? Of course, Elsie Sniffen was the birth name of Kayla Blake, who plays Kim.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:33 PM on September 21, 2018

It seems like a lot maybe most current tv is about horrible people being horrible. The characters on SN were decent people being good, bad and occasionally horrible, but even the sort of horrible people were bearable.

Yeah, this.

Oddly, that quality is what appeals to me for two of my (very different) "comfort food" writers: Nevil Shute and Antoine Laurain.
posted by aurelian at 8:58 PM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

It’s been years since I last rewatched it but I recall that Sorkin has always had a fascination with unusual names (cf. Pixley). Is there not some skeptical mention by maybe Dana of someone being named Elsie Sniffen? Of course, Elsie Sniffen was the birth name of Kayla Blake, who plays Kim.

"Elsie Snuffin" was the name given to Danica McKeller's character The West Wing.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:01 PM on September 21, 2018

* I've loved this show since whenever it was I first saw it. And if you haven't seen this Josh Charles/Keith Olbermann clip (SLYT), it's worth it.

* Yeah, the disappearance of Sabrina Lloyd is an enigma.
posted by aurelian at 9:07 PM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

NorthernLite, Sports Night is not on Hulu. Roku's wider search tells me episodes may be purchased from Prime, Google Play TV, and Vudu.
posted by aurelian at 9:13 PM on September 21, 2018

The first time I saw Sports Night I felt like Aaron Sorkin had crawled inside my head and turned what he found into a TV show. The wit, the pacing, and the sports banter. It was the show I had been waiting for my entire (at that time) 22 year life. Right down to seeing a damn Seder right there on my screen.

The West Wing obviously has a far bigger canon (and as a policy hack, also could have been ripped from my brain), but Sports Night gets my love for being first, and for being a lot easier to slide into for re-watch purposes.

There's lots of stuff I can't re-watch now because it's rather poorly (the relationships are painful at times). But the affection persists.

Also, as a huge fan of baseball history, Isaac's story of missing Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard Round The World (coming after the episode long build-up of Dan fanboying about him being at the Polo Grounds for the game) always has me spell-bound.

Jeremy: You really like Draft Day, don't you?
Casey: To an admittedly psychotic degree, yes.
posted by dry white toast at 10:02 PM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Also, having deployed Napolean's Plan on a couple of occasions, I can confirm that, failing anything better, addressing a problem by showing up and seeing what happens is indeed a completely viable way to proceed.
posted by dry white toast at 10:06 PM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

But as someone who's seen this show roughly a hundred times, and lived a few blocks from the WTC while it was on the air: this is in Mid-town.

I think the street-level shots are definitely Midtown. And "The Quality of Mercy at 29K" refers to a water main breaking "out front" of the building, "on Sixth Avenue." Ain't no Sixth Avenue that far south.

(I had to look the quote up, I swear. I just had the vague memory of it.)

To be fair, it would be easy to mistake the stock "We are in NYC! Look, it's the WTC!" for an establishing shot if you weren't inured to the trope.
posted by praemunire at 10:15 PM on September 21, 2018

God, I love this show. (Though I do I hate that stupid, stupid dating plan. )

Sometimes, I do a little dance. Eyes front, mister!
posted by rewil at 10:16 PM on September 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

One thing that's striking if you watch Sports Night and West Wing together is how many plots and plot twists Sorkin repurposed from one to the other.

Many aspects of this show drove me nuts. Dana's treatment of Casey, however, was the first of a long line of Sorkin female characters who fly into insanity whenever romance comes their way. And yes, his men do have a tendency to stalk their prospective love interests - not just Jeremy and Natalie's email (which at least was understandable as an expression of concern) but Dan's refusal to take Rebecca's repeated "No" for an answer. But Krause and Charles were great together, Huffman is always good, and I, too, am surprised Sabrina Lloyd didn't turn up as the female lead in romantic comedies.

wg
posted by wendyg at 1:20 AM on September 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Very good, Vulture. Now do Northern Exposure. Just remember, we have to see a piano in a catapult in the top five.
posted by Ber at 11:23 AM on September 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

This thread made me go look up Sabrina Lloyd, and it turns out she married a guy who works for the UN, and has been moving around the world raising a family, taking classes, and writing. It sounds like they've lived in Uganda for a couple of stretches, in Rome, in the Pac NW, now Nairobi (I think). You guys, she's a blogger (!!)
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:02 PM on September 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

"Elsie Snuffin" was the name given to Danica McKeller's character The West Wing.

Thanks, Navelgazer. No wonder the connections were not happening in my brain. As Sallah said, "They're digging in the wrong PLACE!"

As well, I had the name slightly wrong. Apologies to Ms. Blake, Ms McKellar, and Snuffins worldwide.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:58 PM on September 22, 2018

No worries. "Sniffin" is correct for Kayla Blake, anyway.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:07 PM on September 22, 2018

I loved this show. I have the DVD box set and should give it a re-watch. The relationship between Dana and Natalie was something special, and so was the friendship of Dan and Casey.

I don't think anyone has been mentioned that the recurring dude in the bar who gives Dana advice about the show in the second season is played by none other than Clark Gregg, our pal Agent Coulson. He gets in a zinger in the show's final episode: "Anyone who can't make money from Sports Night should get out of the money making business."
posted by Gelatin at 5:57 AM on September 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

So is this worth digging up for less than rabid fans?

I think so. I’m not a sports guy, but loved the heck out of this show.

Like Thorzdad, I am very much not a sports guy but with this show Aaron Sorkin wrote the backbone of a FPP for me.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:43 AM on September 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Still one of my favorite shows of all time, and the one that began my long time crush on Sabrina Lloyd. As others noted, she retired from acting to raise a family and travel with them. I attended a community theatre show last weekend and was pleased to see a signed photo of her on the wall -- turns out she had grown up in the town and had done a number of productions there as a teen.
posted by replayer at 1:32 PM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]